PREPARATION OF NEW ZEALAND FLAX.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 61, 6 March 1852, Page 3

PREPARATION OF NEW ZEALAND FLAX.

To the Editor of the " Neio Zealander."

Sin, —" Information will long ere this have been conveyed to New Zealand respecting the discovery of Chevalier Claussen, by which the harsh fibre of English flax may be converted into a substance very much resembling cotton. His experiments have been so successful that the new material is likely to come into use to a

large extent, and will eventually affect the trade in cotton. The process which has been adopted is so simple in its principle, and the effect has been so perfect in dividing the minute fibres of the plant, which has been operated upon, that I feel confident it may be applied with advantage to our New Zealand Flax, and if so it will at once furnish the whole colony of New Zealand with that which has been so long sought after—the means of preparing the staple commodity of the country as an article of export. It is not required to change the New Zealand flax into cotton, but only to free the leaf of the flax from that matter which is superfluous, by some less tedious process than has hitherto been adopted. I shall hope to make further inquiries from those who are able to give the information before I return to New Zealand, but in the mean time I enclose a notice of the experiment itself, which will enable those who are interested in this subject to make trial for themselves. " The flax fibre is formed by a number of small separate fibres connected together. The problem was to divide the hair-like substance into its component parts, and to obtain the separation of the still more minute fibres which composed it. To split this hair-like substance at all seemed difficult, to do it by hundred weights at a time, and to do it cheaply, would seem beyond the bounds of human possibility. Still it might be done, as the tufts of cotton-like fibres that he had seen waving on the banks of the river, showed. He succeeded, after many trials, by a happy application of a very simple chemical process, in disentangling these fibres; if not in the same way, with the same satisfactory i-esailt as had been done in the laboratory of nature. One of the substances he had employed with success in previously preparing the flax, was a solution of caussic soda, in which it was steeped for bleaching. The thought occurred to him to ascertain what would follow were the mass so saturated put into a state of effervescence. The result was so extraordinary that we shall give the description of it in the words of the Secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society, before whom, and Professor Way, the consulting Chemist of the Society, the experiment was shown some three months ago:—Although we have long been practically familiar with the expansive effects of aeriform fluids suddenly disengaged chemically from an apparently solid and inert substance like gunpowder, either in fire-arms or the blasting of rocks, and'with their elastic recoil when released from the pressure of condensation, as in the air-gun or the liquid gasses of Dr. Faraday, we were not prepared for so beautiful an instance of the application of this principle as the one Chevalier Claussen has given us in the splitting of vegetable fibre, by conveying into its interstices the carbonic acid gas sealed in condensation and chemical alliance with soda, and then setting it free by the addition of acid, which breaks off that alliance by its own superior elective affinity for the alkali. Means shown in their results to Le so powerful, and in their operation so gentle yet decisive, gave to the simple experiment, made in the presence of the Council by Professor Way, more the air of a new instance of natural magic, than the sober reality of an ordinary operation of natural laws, of which the application .only was novel ; and its effect on the meeting was accordingly both singular and striking, occasioning evident marks of their agreeable surprise and admiration at the result obtained. The flax fibre soaked in the solution of sub-car-bonate of soda was no sooner immersed in the vessel containing the acidulated water, than its character became at once changed, from that of damp rigid aggression of flax to a light expansive mass of cottony texture, increasing in size like leavening dough, or an expanding sponge. The change was. no less striking when this converted mass iv its turn was placed in the next vessel, which contained the hypo-chlorite of magnesia and became at once bleached, attaining then the colour, as ithad just before received the texture, of cotton." I send a portion of the substance which has been prepared by this process. I remain, Sir, your obedient Servant, William Williams, London, September S, ISSI. [The specimen of flax Cotton prepared by this process which Archdeacon Williams has kindly enclosed, may be seen at our office. It is a very soft and beautiful substance indeed.— Ed. JV. Z.I